Small Pond, Little Ripples, Last Splash: Wizard World Sum-Up Kicks Rocks at Comics Community

The after-effects of Wizard World’s dropping their pre-packaged big-box con on Portland seemed, by Monday night, to be low-key and generally positive. For a company as practiced at throwing nerd parties as Wizard is, it would have been surprising had they not given the city an entertaining weekend.

But then, Monday night, shots were fired in the general direction of the Portland comics community, and as with all good horror stories, the sounds were coming from inside the house.

His suggestions were backed up with quotes from Kurt Busiek, one of the finest writers in superhero comics over the past two decades (his Superman: Secret Identity is my personal favorite Superman story ever); and some dude from Maryland who only tabled at the convention because Wizard had scheduled it one week before Seattle’s Emerald City con.

Included: Choice quotes from said Maryland dealer about the quality of local retailers.

Duin is still one of the best columnists at that paper, definitely not anywhere near the worst (John Canzano still works there, remember) and I’m pretty sure he’s not out-of-touch with regards to Portland’s place in the comics community. So the only other option is the annoying one: He thinks Portland hasn’t done enough to secure a sense of earned legitimacy, a legitimacy that is represented by the big-box, market-poaching, impersonal pop-culture party-machine that is Wizard World.

Which makes the answer Portland’s freshly-slighted community gives to Duin’s question all the more important. And that answer isn’t going to come in the comments section at Oregon Live. It’s going to come at this year's Stumptown Comics Fest, and then again at the Rose City Comic-Con.